大象传媒

My father worked for the Daimler Company in Coventry and was an expert in the 鈥渇luid flywheel鈥� and the 鈥減re-selector box鈥�. He was just an ordinary working man, but because he knew all about these things he had to go all over the country to work on Winston Churchill鈥檚 鈥淲altzing Matilda鈥�. It was a type of tank. When he went away to work on it, sometimes the police would come to the house to take him, but because it was so secret they would not tell him where they were taking him to, until after he had left the house.

My father, often he wasn鈥檛 at home and he was in all sorts of places up north. He was at Southport once, and he鈥檇 had to work solidly for three days and nights and he was totally exhausted and he fell in the bed and the landlady of this bed and breakfast, where he stayed, told him to come down into the shelter. They were all down in the shelter; but he said he couldn鈥檛 go, he was just too tired. He was still on the bed asleep when, the bomb dropped at Southport, because that鈥檚 near Blackpool, and it tipped him out of the bed. Then he went down the shelter.

Another time he was at a blind home, on the south coast, where they had this Waltzing Matilda tank under covers and he had to work on that solidly, he never had any sleep, he just worked till the job was done and they fed him and they housed him because it was were the army was. The army were billeted there, they had a gun, they鈥檇 got these ack-ack guns, and of course they were guarding this tank.

Then he just used to arrive home, and that was it. We never knew when he was coming because when the police came for him, at the house, they went and met, wherever, and father would have transport, some vehicle, or however they got him there, by train, to wherever he鈥檇 gone, but he could not contact my mother. He wasn鈥檛 allowed to contact anybody because possibly he had to sign a secrets thing, I don鈥檛 know, because he didn鈥檛 tell us because it was secret. And he didn鈥檛 tell us after the war because it was nothing to do with anyone else. It鈥檚 what he did, and he went and did it. They wouldn鈥檛 take him to the war because he had rheumatic fever, and that had made his heart not quite right. In fact that鈥檚 what eventually killed him, but he managed to do a hell of a lot of work during his life.

Then they moved my father. They wanted him to go to Earl Shilton, which is near Leicester, because the Self Change Gear Box Company, (they did the engines, or parts of, for these tanks as well as the Daimler), I think they were being moved out of Coventry, because Coventry was getting such a belting.

After the war, once again, you could have petrol (so I would be probably fourteen, something like that by then, when you didn鈥檛 have to have coupons), and Bennett鈥檚 who were the taxi people in Kidderminster, in Birmingham Road, opposite to George Street, had got hearses that were Rolls Royce. My father worked on Rolls Royce cars. So, as you could have petrol now, Tic Bennett could now use the Rolls Royce for the funerals in Kidderminster, (which I鈥檓 sure a lot of people are going to remember) and he took the big petrol tanks from underneath the Rolls, and he had to clean them out, because, of course, the little bit of petrol that was in them had gone to sediment and sludgy stuff, so they were cleaned out so that he could put the petrol back in after he had put the petrol tanks back underneath the cars. So that was a darned good day out, we thought that was grand.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Joe Taylor for the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Sylvia Fairbrother and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.